Where to go in France in September?
The 15 best destinations for a trip to France in September, ranked on the weather actually recorded.
For a trip to France in September, we kept regions and cities in metropolitan France during their best season. Temperatures and rainfall are real records, averaged from 2015 to 2024 at each destination's reference point, and the sea is measured at the nearest coastal point. 15 destinations pass this filter. Top of the ranking: The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence (27 °C in the afternoon, 4 days of rain).
The ranking at a glance
| # | Destination | Afternoon | Rainy days | Sea (°C) | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence | 27 °C | 4 | - | €100-180 a day |
| 2 | 🇫🇷 Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel | 27 °C | 4 | - | €80-150 a day |
| 3 | 🇫🇷 Uzès and the Pont du Gard | 28 °C | 5 | - | €80-140 a day |
| 4 | 🇫🇷 Nice | 26 °C | 5 | 24 °C | €90-170 a day |
| 5 | 🇫🇷 The Camargue | 25 °C | 6 | 22 °C | €80-130 a day |
| 6 | 🇫🇷 Drôme Provençale | 24 °C | 6 | - | €80-130 a day |
| 7 | 🇫🇷 The Luberon | 24 °C | 6 | - | €90-150 a day |
| 8 | 🇫🇷 Serre-Ponçon and Les Orres | 23 °C | 6 | - | €70-130 a day |
| 9 | 🇫🇷 Corsica | 26 °C | 7 | 23 °C | €100-170 a day |
| 10 | 🇫🇷 Gaillac | 26 °C | 7 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 11 | 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne | 26 °C | 7 | - | €65-110 a day |
| 12 | 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence | 25 °C | 7 | - | €90-160 a day |
| 13 | 🇫🇷 The Ardèche | 25 °C | 7 | - | €70-120 a day |
| 14 | 🇫🇷 The Côte Vermeille and Collioure | 25 °C | 7 | 22 °C | €80-140 a day |
| 15 | 🇫🇷 Mougins | 25 °C | 7 | - | €110-200 a day |
The 15 destinations in detail
Region1 🇫🇷 The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence
🌡️ 27 °C in the afternoon, 4 days of rain · 💶 €100-180 a day
The Alpilles are a range of white limestone as long as a day's bike ride, between Arles and Avignon. On its slopes stand a citadel dismantled by Richelieu at Les Baux, a quarry where Picasso is projected onto the rock, the ancient city of Glanum, the cloister where Van Gogh painted his irises, and mills that press the olives.
City2 🇫🇷 Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel
🌡️ 27 °C in the afternoon, 4 days of rain · 💶 €80-150 a day
Fréjus was Forum Julii, founded by Caesar and later Augustus's naval base, and it keeps an amphitheatre, a 5th-century baptistery and a cloister whose ceiling is painted with fantastical creatures. To the east, Saint-Raphaël opens onto the Estérel: red volcanic rock, a corniche road laid out in 1903, clear-water calanques and trails up to the Pic de l'Ours.
City3 🇫🇷 Uzès and the Pont du Gard
🌡️ 28 °C in the afternoon, 5 days of rain · 💶 €80-140 a day
Uzès fits into a pocket handkerchief of honey-coloured stone: a ducal castle still lived in by the same family, a round tower pierced with windows, an arcaded square where the Saturday market overflows with truffles, olives and goat's cheeses. At the foot of the town rises the spring that supplied Nîmes via the Pont du Gard, twenty minutes away by road.
City4 🇫🇷 Nice
🌡️ 26 °C in the afternoon, 5 days of rain, sea at 24 °C · 💶 €90-170 a day
Nice is not a beach resort but France's fifth-largest city, a possession of the House of Savoy until 1860, with an old centre that is still lived in, markets that serve locals first and a hill for looking down over the bay. People come for the sea and stay for the socca, the Cimiez museums and a tram that links the airport to the old port in twenty-six minutes.
Region5 🇫🇷 The Camargue
🌡️ 25 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain, sea at 22 °C · 💶 €80-130 a day
Between the two arms of the Rhône, the Camargue is a flat land where the sky takes up all the space. You drive between rice fields and sansouïres, a flight of pink flamingos lands in front of you, a gardian rides past with his trident and black bulls graze in the marsh.
Region6 🇫🇷 Drôme Provençale
🌡️ 24 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain · 💶 €80-130 a day
Provence begins here, in this southern corner of the Drôme where the olive trees of Nyons replace the walnuts, where the curved roof tiles bake in the sun and where the mistral stops at the hills of the Baronnies. You climb up to the Château de Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné ended her days, and see fields of lavender at your feet stretching all the way to the Ventoux.
Region7 🇫🇷 The Luberon
🌡️ 24 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain · 💶 €90-150 a day
The Luberon is a long mountain stretching between Cavaillon and Manosque, and above all the string of hilltop villages that gaze at it from the hills opposite: Gordes and its honey-coloured stone houses, Roussillon in red and orange on its ochre cliffs, Bonnieux, Ménerbes, Lacoste.
Region8 🇫🇷 Serre-Ponçon and Les Orres
🌡️ 23 °C in the afternoon, 6 days of rain · 💶 €70-130 a day
A 2,800-hectare reservoir of turquoise water under the sun of the Southern Alps: Blue Flag beaches, the Saint-Michel chapel on its islet, the demoiselles coiffées of Théus, Embrun's cathedral. In winter, the Les Orres resort takes over with its slopes, its mountain coaster and a giant zip line.
Region9 🇫🇷 Corsica
🌡️ 26 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain, sea at 23 °C · 💶 €100-170 a day
The Isle of Beauty lives up to its name: from the white cliffs of Bonifacio to the red calanques of Piana, Corsica packs in landscapes the mainland can only envy. You swim in the translucent water of Palombaggia in the morning, hike beneath the Aiguilles de Bavella in the afternoon and dine on charcuterie and brocciu in a mountain village in the evening. A mountain in the sea, quite literally.
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Region10 🇫🇷 Gaillac
🌡️ 26 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
Between Albi and Toulouse, Gaillac holds one of the oldest vineyards in France, with grape varieties you'll drink almost nowhere else: braucol, duras, mauzac. Around it, bastides of brick and stone, Lisle-sur-Tarn, Castelnau-de-Montmiral and Puycelsi, line the river or look down on the Grésigne forest.
Region11 🇫🇷 Tarn-et-Garonne
🌡️ 26 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €65-110 a day
Between the Garonne, the Tarn and the Aveyron, this small département packs in Moissac's Romanesque cloister, Ingres's drawings in Montauban, the Bruniquel castles and the cliffs of the Aveyron gorges. Add the bastides of the Lomagne, Auvillar and its round market hall, and the hatmakers of Caussade.
Region12 🇫🇷 Aix-en-Provence
🌡️ 25 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €90-160 a day
Aix has lived on a reservoir of hot water ever since the Romans founded Aquae Sextiae here in 122 BC, and today it has around a hundred fountains, some of which still flow at 34°C. It is also Cézanne's city, where his studio, the Bibémus quarries and his family home can all be visited within a few kilometres of each other.
Region13 🇫🇷 The Ardèche
🌡️ 25 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €70-120 a day
The Ardèche is first of all a river that has pierced a 54-metre arch through the limestone and carved 32 kilometres of gorges behind it, which you paddle down by canoe with a bivouac halfway. Then it is the Chauvet cave, with its lions and horses painted 36,000 years ago.
Region14 🇫🇷 The Côte Vermeille and Collioure
🌡️ 25 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain, sea at 22 °C · 💶 €80-140 a day
Where the Pyrenees drop into the Mediterranean, between Argelès and the Spanish border, the coast folds into schist coves, headlands and colourful harbours: this is the Côte Vermeille, 30 km of corniche road and four villages, Collioure, Port-Vendres, Banyuls and Cerbère.
City15 🇫🇷 Mougins
🌡️ 25 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain · 💶 €110-200 a day
Picasso spent the last twelve years of his life in Mougins, in a farmhouse that remains private and cannot be visited. Only the neighbouring chapel is open. On the museum front, things have changed: the Museum of Classical Art has closed and since 2024 the building has housed the FAMM, devoted to women artists.
Frequently asked questions
Where to go in France in September?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence, Fréjus, Saint-Raphaël and the Esterel, Uzès and the Pont du Gard, Nice and The Camargue top our ranking for a trip to France in September. In first place, The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 27 °C in the afternoon, 4 days of rain on average over 2015-2024.
Which is the closest destination in France in September?
Corsica, about 1h40 by air from Paris, with 26 °C in the afternoon, 7 days of rain, sea at 23 °C in September.
Where does it rain least in September among these destinations?
The Alpilles and Les Baux-de-Provence: 4 days of rain on average in September, with 27 °C in the afternoon.
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